Should I finance my grownup DD and the DGCs?

Frank, you ask why your daughters should pay back money you give them. Obviously I cannot talk about your individual situation, but there has been a thread, and a posting here by somebody who has given their children everything and demanded nothing in return and the result, as told on Gransnet, is immature children, who are incapable of standing on their own feet or thinking through the results of their actions, on their parents, themselves or anybody else, because they know no matter what they do their parents will always bail them out.

The problems recounted on Gransnet are not the only example a friend was complaining to me yesterday about the son of one of her friends who is unemployed and on benefits but is making no effort to find work because his benefit payments are supplemented by large and frequent cash handouts from his parents and, as my friend says, her taxes and mine are going towards paying his benefits because his mother has removed any incentive for him to seek work. I can think of several other similar examples.

The difficulty we face if we are fortunate to be comfortably off and want to share the bounty with our children is ensuring we have adult mature children capable of making their way independently in the word, who are grateful when we gild their gingerbread now and again with help to replace cars, buy appliances or let the grandchildren learn a musical instrument and having immature children who know that however reckless, foolish or perverse their decision making is it doesnt matter because the bank of mum and dad will always bail them out.

I pay for GC's shoes and I buy clothes. DC get money for birthday and Christmas. GC get lump sums annually on their birthdays. Even with two wages it is still difficult for families.

I agree with all Flickety says, she puts it very well.

We don't want out DSs to depend on us, we want them to be independent and have done all we can to make them so. They have each had different needs at different times so have been treated differently. The important thing is that they do not expect our help. Our little GS asked me at the weekend if I had brought him a present and I said 'No' which he accepted. We don't want him to grow up expecting something every time he sees us.

Of course we bought the travel system when GS1 was born and will do the same when our other DSs have their first one. We have helped out with legal fees when they bought houses and done other one off things but as we don't know how many GCs we will have we do have to be careful what we do for the 2 we already have.

Because there are no expectations we feel free to be generous when we can.

I do so agree that it is wrong to make your children dependent upon you as there are so many ways we can help apart from paying for their day to day needs.

I certainly supported both sons at the beginning of their working or academic lives. I supplemented DS2's uni grant, though not sure what he did with it all! DS1 was useless with money and I did help him out. However, when he met his wife, he became much more responsible and is now a very sensible middle-aged man. They asked for loans, not handouts and I was happy to oblige - interest-free of course.

Goodness, I would have loved to have helped more but my husband and I struggled a little when first together with my 4 children our son and my stepson. If I had started to fund activities, schools etc I don't know where it would end as we now have 10 almost 11 grandchildren and we couldn't have helped one without the others.

From grannybuy - the name says it all - this is what my DGC call me because I have bought a lot of their shoes, jackets etc. I have also paid for cars, house deposits and treated them all to holidays where we all stay together for a week. We get pleasure from it, and they do appreciate it. Like others, we would rather they got the benefit now, while they are most in need, than later. We try to be moderate, because we don't want them to feel dependant.
Specki4eyes is wondering how this situation has arisen. Most of our parents' generation didn't have the means, nor probably will our children when they reach our age. We, the 'baby boomers' have been in a unique situation. I'm for spreading the wealth, while able, just not to the extent of 'on demand', or spoiling them

I want to help my children when the time is right and I feel they are mature enough. We have both been fortunate enough to have been left money by our parents and we do want to use some of it to help our children but I don't feel they handle money particularly well at the moment, they probably wouldn't agree. I don't want them to have everything just offered on a plate. We have stumped up quite a lot in the way of flat deposits already for our older son and we have financed our younger son through university. Although I have the benefit of my parents' money now they didn't give me any help with house buying etc. when I was starting out, but then I don't think anyone expected anything back then. Although for all the current must have gadgets the younger generation surround themselves with and take for granted, house buying has never been harder. However, I do think like many home owners my generation have benefited financially from the surge in house prices over the past 20 years or so. In my parents' day house prices just crept up and when they inherited money from the sale of my grandparents' houses when they died, I don't think either of them inherited life changing amounts of money.

When my husband and I were newly married and not very well off , an aunt of my husband visited us and left a cheque under the needle of my sewing machine. I have never forgotten this kind gesture and whenever I can, I pass a little surprise to whichever of the next two generations seems to be in need.

Thats lovely Hunt, that way there is no sense of entitlement which I think a lot of young people have these days.

We pay every month into a fund for our G/Children .

Our family if they need it . Which seems to be very very seldom . They are all doing well I am glad to say .

I'd love to be able to help my children and granchildren financially if I had the finances to make that possible. My two older grandchildren have a fair amount of expensive treats from their other Grandparents but the younger ones in Oz have to have what Mum and Dad can afford.The best I can do is to visit them and spend lots of time playing games, reading, chatting, cooking and generally helping out. Unfortunately they all live in Australasia and I don't get to see them very often although we do Skype.
I'm just hoping daughter no 3 who lives on the other side on the Tyne from me will manage (eventually) to have successful IVF.